MOUNT Panorama Bathurst – it’s the ultimate test of man and machine, even on warm-up laps!

Although we are aware of some untelevised moments that time has glossed over, two incidents in particular have piqued our interest.

Back in 1986, spirited warm-up laps were in vogue, especially in the all-star Nissan Pulsar support race, and it involved some of the meet’s biggest ticket drivers.

Italian ace Roberto Ravaglia came unstuck at Forrest’s Elbow and was subsequently smashed by Jim Richards. The mess left only eight starters on the grid.

Allegedly, Ravaglia got confused by the car’s left-hand gearshift, which set off the unfortunate series of events.

It wasn’t a great event for Ravaglia, who finished The Great Race parked at The Cutting with a smashed BMW after only two circuits. He had initially qualified second for the race before placing ninth in the top ten shootout.

The Peter Jackson-sponsored encounter was framed as a grudge match between internationals (including two Kiwis) versus Aussies (and two more New Zealanders), with Franz Klammer, Denny Hulme, Michel Delcourt, Ravaglia and Robbie Francevic going up against Colin Bond, George Fury, Richards, Dick Johnson and Graeme Crosby.

Rather uniquely, the grid for the race was loosely based on the results of a remote-controlled car race on Saturday morning, contested in front of Channel 9’s cameras!

The three-lap celebrity driver race was a continuation, of sorts, of the 1985 Nissan Turbo Super Challenge, which toured the country with pro racers tearing up some perfectly good Pulsars in the name of entertainment.

In October of that year, the one make class made its debut as a support category at the Bathurst 1000, filling a gap in the Saturday afternoon program.

Channelling some future NASCAR marketing, the encounter was sponsored by M&Ms, and produced a truly NASCAR finish, with West Aussie Tim Slako claiming a side-by-side drag race to the line with Jim Richards.

Post-race in 1986, the cars were apparently sold off for $5,000 a pop – we are unsure if there was a discount on the Richards and Ravaglia machines…

Fast forward to 1996, and another race day support race shot to prominence for all of the wrong reasons, when Craig Baird led the ten-car Super Touring field away on the class’s two customary warm-up laps.

With some vigour, he gapped the field on the run up Mountain Straight and into Griffiths Bend… which is where the Supercars DSO found out exactly how slippery the going was!

Smacking the outside wall, the car spun through 180 degrees to face the oncoming traffic.

While this was going on, Network 7 played a pre-recorded piece on Italian import, Audi factory driver Tamara Vidali.

By the end of the interview and a replay of Baird shunting, the field was cannoning down Conrod Straight, with Vidali’s A4 sliding out of control.

Incredibly, the Audi Sport Australia equipped Vidali with slick tyres to take on the torrents, an obstacle that ultimately Quattro’s capabilities were unable to overcome.

Somehow, the international visitor was able to snap out of the slide and return to the pits, with the television coverage cutting to a commercial break after the first warm-up lap, during which 20 per cent of the field had significant drama!

While support race-Bathurst 1000 double-duty these days is often seen as advantageous, in 1996, it was hardly in vogue.

Backing up a little later on the day in the AMP Bathurst 1000 were Geoff Full (alongside Geoff Kendrick), Brad Jones (with Tony Scott) and Jim Richards (with his son Steven).

Rain master Richards was untouchable in the Super Touring event, the first win for Volvo in Super Touring on these shores, storming through the pack to beat Brad Jones, Paul Morris, Baird and Geoff Brabham.

For the weekend, Richards was coming off the Super Touring bench, filling in for Peter Brock in the #05 Volvo 850 Sedan.

The win paved the way for Richards to lead the local Volvo assault for the next three seasons, highlighted by victory in the 1998 AMP Bathurst 1000.

Brock, meanwhile, vacated the seat to concentrate on his Holden Racing Team duties, ditto Greg Murphy, whose absence saw Vidali receive a call-up.

Of the drivers involved with the 1000 crossover, Murphy wound up winning the Great Race and graduated from Super Touring the following year to take over the HRT seat left by Europe-bound Craig Lowndes.

Brock, meanwhile, came home in P5, and in a pattern that suggested it was better luck to skip the support race, Full, Richards and Jones were all out by lap 100, with thanks to a pair of engine failures and a crash by Steven Richards.

Meanwhile, the Super Touring category, as supplemented by a handful of New Zealand invitees, grew to 27 entries as the main act on the first weekend in October 1997.

Viadli returned to Europe, with a career highlight being second place in the 2006 Superstars Championship, where she won three races.

Craig Baird, meanwhile, went on to enjoy a career that would subsequently net nearly 200 more race wins, and very few warm-up lap stacks!